


Sherlock Holmes Can't Kiss

by Moorishflower



Series: Fifty AUs [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-11
Updated: 2011-07-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 20:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moorishflower/pseuds/Moorishflower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's all well and good when you're in a crowd, but you do tend to notice being stared at when it's just the two of you. For the prompt "she notices him not noticing her." Genderswapped Watson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sherlock Holmes Can't Kiss

Joan knows that she’s a plain woman. She’s gone through most of her life making peace with that fact: she’s got hair that, while red, isn’t _quite_ red enough, and she’s got too-broad hips and breasts that are too small, and she has the sort of face that makes people ask her if she’s tired all the time. She’s only too aware of all of these things, and though she’s never exactly been hard up for company, she’s always kept in mind that being alone was more likely than spending the night with someone.

Sherlock, apparently, has not gotten this memo.

He does this _thing_ when he thinks she isn’t looking. It’s a quick glance, just enough to catch sight of her, and then it’s gone again, Sherlock’s face once again hidden behind a violin, or a newspaper, or a cadaver. If she weren’t so utterly certain of her own plainness, she might mistake it for the secret, covetous glance of an interested party. Sherlock, though, is not interested in anyone, not as far as Joan can tell. He’s in a long-term relationship with his work (and possibly Lestrade, she hasn’t really decided yet), and nothing can change that.

That’s the part that makes her angry. Not the furtive little glances themselves, but the thought that Sherlock is most likely doing it because she’s amused him somehow, or maybe she’s annoyed him. It’s just like him to let his own annoyance fester out of spite, and Joan spends an awful few days conveniently “forgetting” to buy jam and bread at the store, even though it means that she’s always hungry by the time she gets to the office.

It’s over dinner that she finally breaks; she’s picking listlessly at her chicken parmesan, and Sherlock is dismembering his meal with the clinical precision that he also uses with corpses. Joan thinks it says something about her – about how she feels about Sherlock – that such a spectacle no longer bothers her.

“Could you pass the salt, please?” Sherlock asks, and Joan very carefully sets down her fork and knife, folds her hands in her lap, and stares.

“You’ve been staring at me,” she says. Sherlock blinks at her.

“Beg pardon?”

“You’ve been _staring_ at me. You’ve been doing it for weeks, now, and I’d like to know what it is I’ve done wrong.” Joan pats down the shoulders of her sweater, the sides, trying to peer at herself. “Have I grown a third eye somewhere? Do I smell? Did I accidentally touch your violin without your permission? _What_?”

“Joan…”

“ _Oh_ no.” Joan raises her hands, scowling. “I know that tone. That’s your ‘let’s humor the dullard’ tone, I’ve heard you use it with Lestrade, and with Anderson, and…”

Sherlock, seeming very calm for someone who has incurred Joan’s ire, pushes his chair out from the table and stands, all long limbs and pale skin, and those dark curls (Joan has never admitted it to anyone, but she’s very fond of curls). Then, expression perfectly neutral, he walks around to Joan’s side of the table, bends down, and kisses her.

It is not the sort of kiss that virginal teenagers picture happening at their prom, nor is it the sort of kiss written about in romance novels. It’s dry, and too hard, and rather intensely awkward, as far as first kisses go. Joan makes a half-hearted attempt to keep speaking through it, but Sherlock is persistent and thorough, if not exactly experienced, and she falls silent about halfway through.

When Sherlock finally breaks the kiss, Joan’s breathing is a little bit harsher and she crosses her legs, feeling embarrassed by her own reaction. Sherlock is, as always, inscrutable.

“…What was that for?” she finally dares to ask, and Sherlock, in a surprising show of tenderness, reaches out and brushes a lock of hair behind her ear. She normally wears it even shorter than this, but she’s been so busy lately, running around after Sherlock and helping him solve cases, and…

“Because I wanted to know what it felt like.”

“Kissing me? Or kissing in general?”

“Yes.”

Joan snorts. “You’re unhelpful.”

“I cannot be anything other than what I am.”

“Bully for you,” she mutters, and then, trying not to think too hard about what she’s doing, she wraps her arms around Sherlock’s neck, presses her fingers to the curve of his skull, winds a lock of dark hair around her index finger and tugs gently. “But the next time you want to do something like that… _just ask_.”


End file.
